Hitherto, article handling devices or robots, as they are frequently termed, have contained lifting and swinging motors carrying mechanically-operated extensible arms with workpiece grippers mounted thereon for transferring articles from one location to another, such as for serving production machines. Such devices have been limited in their applicability by the fact that they are blind, in that they are useful only where their mechanism can be programmed to feel the article to be picked up or to be accurately limited in its motions for picking up such articles, and in the orientation thereof. Where a video camera has been incorporated in computerized automation devices, its fixed position has required the computer to perform complex trigonometric computations to determine the precise locations and orientations of such articles.